Can't Find It?

Request an Item

Submit a Request an Item form for items not in the library catalog. Submissions will be evaluated for purchase or borrowing from another library (interlibrary loan). The library is unable to purchase or borrow every suggested items.

You may request:

Three items per day with a total of 5 per month.
- One item per request form.
Items that will be published within the next 6 months.
Items published in the United States or available in other US libraries.

Important details:

Request fulfillment generally takes 2 to 6 weeks; obscure titles may take longer.
Requested items not purchased for the library’s collection will be considered for interlibrary loan if they are at least one year past publication date, due to loaning libraries’ lending policies.
Items with a publication date greater than 6 months out will NOT be considered. Please re-submit when within the 6-month publishing window.
Self-published titles are generally not purchased. If you are a Whatcom County author, please visit our Local Authors page for more information and options.
Items published outside of the United States are generally not purchased. We may be able to to borrow these items if available in other libraries in the US.

Request an Item

Frequently Asked Questions

You can request books, DVDs, music CDs and audiobook CDs, eBooks and eAudiobooks, microfilm, and copies of articles or obituaries. Full issues of magazines and other periodicals are not requestable, though you may request multiple articles from a single issue.

You can request items that have already been published, or that will be published in the next six months.

Requested items that are not purchased will only be considered for borrowing from another library if the item was published at least 12 months ago, because most libraries will not lend out items to other libraries until a year past publication.

The library is committed to providing meaningful collections as outlined in our Collection Development Policy and Interlibrary Loan Policy.

Typically it will take 2 to 6 weeks. The timing for purchase requests and interlibrary loans depends upon the source of the item and its publication date; obscure titles can take longer to arrive.

If the item is purchased by the library, it will be placed on hold on your library account once we have ordered it, and you will be notified of the hold by email or telephone messaging (dependent upon how you have your library account set up).
- The exception to this is digital material (eBooks or eAudiobooks). As library staff are unable to reserve digital items for patrons, we will confirm with you when the item is purchased. You may then visit Washington Anytime Library to access or place a hold on the item.
If the item is obtained through interlibrary loan, it will be placed on hold on your library account after we receive it from the lending library, and you will be notified of the hold by email or telephone messaging (dependent upon how you have your library account set up).
If the item is not purchased and is unavailable through interlibrary loan, we will let you know by placing a note on your library account or, if you include your email address as your contact method, via email.

Yes. You may place up to five (5) requests per calendar month, with a maximum of three (3) per day.

In order to maintain our reputation in the interlibrary loan system so that other libraries will continue to lend to us, we have additional rules regarding borrowing ILL items:

Not returning 3 ILL items in a 12-month period for any reason, including but not limited to loss, theft, or damage, will result in a 12-month pause on ILL privileges. This includes items that are paid for.
Not returning 6 ILL items will result in a lifetime loss of ILL privileges.

Interlibrary loan items are not renewable. You may renew purchased items if they have not been requested by someone else. More information about borrowing and renewing library materials can be found on our Borrow Materials page.

Please see the library’s purchasing guidelines for authors and publishers if you would like your title to be considered for purchase.

If you are an author or illustrator who lives in Whatcom County, is from Whatcom County, or has a tie to Whatcom County that is evident in your work, please see the Local Author Collection page.

Ask us!

Page updated 5/1/2025